Rome was thus brought face to face with the most momentous decision in her whole history. The Romans were not untroubled by moral scruples nor blind to the fact that to accede to the petition would necessarily lead to war with Carthage, since Carthage had promptly taken the city under her protection and occupied it with her troops; but the opportunity was too tempting, and if it were allowed to pass, the whole of the rich island would undoubtedly fall under the sovereignty of Carthage for evermore, and her power, formidable already, would be correspondingly increased. The senate hesitated, but the consul Appius Claudius brought the matter before the comitia centuriata, and they decided in favour of rendering assistance, and thereby in favour of war. It was a step that could never be retraced, a step of the same incalculable consequence to Rome as the occupation of Silesia was to Prussia, or the war with Spain and the occupation of Cuba and the Philippines to the United States of America. Its immediate consequences were a struggle of twenty-four years’ duration with Carthage for the possession of Sicily, and the creation of a Roman sea power which was not merely a match for that of Carthage, but actually annihilated it; its ultimate result was the acquisition of a dominion beyond sea in which Rome for the first time bore rule over tributary subjects governed by Roman magnates and exploited by Italian capitalists. A further consequence was that the Romans took advantage of the difficulties in which Carthage was involved by a mutiny of mercenaries in 237 to wrest Sardinia and Corsica from her and at the same time once more exact a huge indemnity. In other directions, too, Rome became more and more deeply involved in the affairs of the outside world, and consequently with the political system of Hellenic states. As in the old conflict with the Etruscans and the recent war with Carthage, so a decade later she solved in the Levant a problem which had been propounded to Greece and for the solution of which she had not been strong enough. When the pirate state of the Illyrians of Scodra extended to the coasts of Italy the ravages it had inflicted upon the Greeks, Rome took vigorous action, used her lately acquired sea power for the speedy overthrow of the pirate state (229) and planted her foot firmly on the coast of the Balkan peninsula; thereby encroaching on the sphere of influence of Macedonia, which was constrained to be a helpless spectator.